[normal people don't do this]

October 26: Had a surprise interview with Asante in Kampala, Uganda

October 27: Was asked to join a tour for Asante, beginning November 5.

October 29: Packed my bags to leave Kampala, found out that because of the hurricane I'd be delayed two days.

October 30: Asante, yes.

October 31: Actually left Uganda. Spent the night in UAE on the way home.

November 1: Arrive in JFK and learn I indeed do NOT have a flight to Rochester. Bum a ride off friends of my mother.

November 2: Arrive home. Unpack. Repack. Sleep. Laundry. Decide to throw a thank you dinner for my supporters, make a bunch of phone calls, run errands. Fill out paperwork and application for a job I already have a flight booked to get to.

November 3: Unpack more. Repack more. Sleep a little. Prepare for the dinner.

November 4: Church. Make oodles of chapati and other prep stuff for the dinner. Have the dinner. Visit friends. Go home. Finish packing. Sleep.

November 5: Fly to Portland, Oregon. Spend the afternoon with a friend, then get dropped at an address. Knock on the door. Ask, "Am I supposed to be here? I'm Amy." Am welcomed in and later ask, "So, who are you and why am I here?"

November 6: Picked up by Asante director and taken to airport to pick other chaps. Training.

November 7: Training. Ha. Training.

November 8: Pile on bus and head to Idaho. Sleep in hotel.

November 9: Pile on bus and head to Wyoming.  Bus dies. Sleep in hotel.

November 10: Wait in the hotel to hear about the bus. Get flights arranged to fly to Minneapolis the next day.

November 11: Leave hotel early and fly to Minneapolis. [END TIME CHANGES FOR TWO MONTHS.]

And.... now I'm sitting in the airport waiting for the Choir to arrive!

Phew.

i can't think of a decent title for this

Alright, friends.

Here’s the scoop.  If you have been following me on Facebook, you have probably been wondering what on earth is happening to me, and where on earth I am.

Let me tell you: I wake up at what I think should be morning [2am, 4:30am…] and ask those very same questions!

Well here we go, friends, hang on to your seats because it’s been a wild ride! (Actually, you will be fine. I’m the one that needs to buckle.)

here in your courts

Devotions in the African Children's Choir are beautiful times of being together. I miss them. Twenty to thirty to forty or more people; our ACC family, hosties, friends, church members - singing songs they know, learning new ones, and looking around smiling as Luganda or Kiswahilli words unite to praise God and we are reminded of the beauty of culture and language and God's sovereignty and grace that brings us together.

One of my absolute favorite devotion songs has lyrics that decorated my sound board on tour and now my garden at home. 

"Here in Your courts where I'm close to Your throne, I'll find where I belong." 

Where I belong. We spend countless hours trying to figure out where we belong. As if the lyrics implied that the time at His throne would give us an answer like "home" or "tour" or "Africa" or "Haiti" or anywhere else on this earth. 

No. You find where you belong as your knees mark the floor because you are already there. At his feet. In His courts. Where you - where we - belong. 

I love Africa. I have more than loved my time here. I wish it wasn't so quickly wrapping up. But being here does not put me "where God wants me." Being home does not put me "where God wants me." Being on a bus does not put me "where God wants me." 

Living my life with Him in His presence at His throne listening to Him and following where on this earth He choses to place me - 

That is where God wants me. 

leaving on a jet plane

It's that time again - that time when I pack my bags and peace out of town! 

For nearly two years I lived on a bus full of wonderful Africans.  Two groups of people that quickly became my second and third families.  I learned about their cultures, languages, tribes, cities, villages, families..... I realned how to tark with my L's and my R's arr mixed alound.  I learned to sing countless songs in languages I don't know and how to shake my cabina with the best of the white folk.

All the while, looking forward to the day when I could walk on their soil with them and experience their homeland as they have experienced mine. 

Well, friends....

Content

Content.

Read that word again.

Do it. Look up, and read it again.

How did you pronounce it?  What meaning does it hold for you right now, in this moment?  Content or content?

Interesting, eh? How those words are the same, yet, not.

Question: Are you content with the contents of your life, right now?

Hmm.  I dream a lot.  I don't mean daydream of things to be or what I want/wish for, I mean I dream, a lot.  Most of the time it's foolish nonsense like oodles of sawdust coming out of my mouth, flying frogs living in the tree house, or how I've become a world-renown baker because of my amazing chocolate cake.

But lately, I've been dreaming about other places.  Places I've been before - Asia, Haiti, Tour.  I'm talking obscene amounts of dreams about other places.  I regularly wake up wondering where I am - not an uncommon thing for me, since on tour I rarely knew where I was at any given moment of the day, let alone when I woke up.  But these dreams are so real, I feel so much like I'm in this other place... and when I realize I'm just at home I find myself disappointed.  Then I ask myself,

"Am I content?"

Truthfully, I don't even know.

Four nights ago I dreamt I was in Asia.  Once again visiting Missy & Carly, taking part in their daily tasks, joining in on the ministry and loving every second I got to participate in the work that they are doing.  We walked through the burned out section of town, talked with a few locals, I went to Russian with Carly, and went to another M's house for church.  When I woke up, I was lonely.

Three nights ago I dreamt that I was on tour again.  I was with our beautiful children of ACC 35, geared up for a concert in Colorado.  Together we had devotions, freaked out because one of the costume bags was missing (which wasn't uncommon in real life), and I made a concert order with Uncle Tony.  We then walked in our two concert lines to the sanctuary where hundreds of people had gathered to enjoy the beauty that is Choir 35.  When I woke up I cried - because it wasn't real.

Two nights ago I dreamt that the compound in Haiti where I lived was trying to integrate itself more into the town around it, and so they were selling the missionary houses, opening up the gates all the time, and putting in another community garden.  I had gone down with Missy to purchase the house I had lived in before, so that I could join in on the projects.  I walked around the house and found myself thinking back on the days when I called that place home - and was so peaceful knowing that I'd call it home again.  When I woke up I was sad.  What a lame adjective - but for the truth.  I was so sad.  I want to be there again.

Often I look around at the people here and I wonder how they don't get bored.  People that have done the same thing every day for years.  Even my dad just celebrated his 25th year at his work.  It's incredible - really, that doesn't happen very often.  But I can't imagine.  It's just not for me.

With all the struggles I endured in Haiti (you won't find them here, but ask me if you like) I thought I learned a piece of what it meant to be content.  In my own words:

It's times like these when the verse, "Be still and know that I am God" are what you need to hear the most, but want to hear the least. One of the biggest lessons I learned during my six months in Haiti was to be content. Content with what I'm doing, with what I'm not doing, with where I am, with where I am not. I spent a lot of time in my house while I lived in on that island: and was it in vain? Certainly not. God taught me more in those early morning hours, as the sun peeked through the palm trees behind my house and into my living room where I sat and read my Bible with a lovely cup of coffee. The warm Caribbean sun in its orange glowing beauty poking through the slats in my windows; God beginning yet another day with his warm breath gently blowing my curtains, whispering to me, "I have a plan... just you wait."

Pfft.  It's awfully poetic as I read it now, but honestly.  I'm not done learning that lesson, and I probably won't ever be.  I do know, however, that I'm more "content" when I'm overseas.  Missy has often said, "If I lived in the states, I'd be miserable." It's not what she's made for.  Built for.  She thrives, and I mean THRIVES when she's overseas.  Asia. Where she is now.  Thrives.  That's not to extinguish a desire to be "home" - with family, friends, in a "world" where people speak your language, you can buy fruits and veggies at the store even when they aren't in season, and where you can worship freely.  But it's just not where God has called her to be.  No sense pulling a Jonah and spending three days in a whale.  Gross.

I'm finding myself more and more realizing that desire and calling God has placed on me to be overseas.  And I know that it's not time to go yet.  And that, my friends, is paining me.  I'm struggling to be content in a place I don't ultimately want to be.  I'm learning how to be content in the waiting.

Content with the contents of life, right here, right now.


"Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord..." 

Asia with Missy:

 ACC 35

 Haiti, with my Advanced English Class

You know if you...

... live in NY when there are only two seasons: winter & road construction.

You hate those lists too, eh?  They drive me crazy.  Mostly because they all list the same things, but are about a different thing.  Winter & road construction: True of just about any location north of 38º?  Exactly.

However, in my re-entry, I've thought, "I'm clazy.  Nobody here understands."

So I'm pulling the hypocrite card here and making my own, "You know if you've traveled with the ACC if..." list.  For us Aunties & Uncles out there, you know what it's like.  Now is when you nod in agreement.

Ready?  Alright.

You know if you've traveled with the ACC if:
1.  Long calls and short calls have nothing to do with the phone.
2.  "Countdown!" may be any assemblage of numbers 1-23, give or take a few, on any given day.
3.  You went to Vegas with your own poker chips, except you're cool, so you call them tokens.  You even signed them yourself - and they were used, and they were worth something.
4.  You start many sentences with the word "Even."
5.  "Bag checks" are not verbs, they are nouns. Running, skipping, singing, dancing, lovely wonderful nouns.
6.  You have shaken your cabina in praise to the Lord.
7.  You know what a cabina is.
8.  When you are asked, "Auntier may you pray with me?" you go find a game.
9.  You don't go shopping for khakis, you go shopping for travel pants.
10.  You can hold your susu for exactly two hours, as scheduled.
11.  You have slept in a luxurious bed, on a leaky air-mattress, a couch, a cot, a bus seat, a pew, & the floor, in one week.
12.  You have sung and danced to the same songs every day & night for 16 months straight, and you still love them, somehow.
13.  You were completely lost the first week you went without a minute-by-minute schedule handed to you on Monday.
14.  You had 23 children at age 23.
15.  You want to go to Africa.  Every day. Want to go to Africa.  Want to go... to Africa...
16.  Your current "address" has been two simple characters: V1, V2, V3, or V4.
17.  When asked, "Where are you?" the only answer you can give with confidence is "V1," "V2," "V3," or "V4."  And if you've recently switched, sometimes even that you don't know.
18.  You have translated English to... English.
19.  You have been greeted in the morning by dozens of warm, joyful hugs and asked, "Are you fine?"
20.  You were blessed, challenged, and loved, daily, by a beautiful group of little African children - and they meant, and mean, the world to you.

Yes?

around the world and back again...

And now I have culture shock.

ish?

Dear Peter Jordan, would you consider revising your Re-Entry book so as to include a chapter called "How to Talk to People You Might See Again"?

That's right, I've completely lost my ability to talk normally with those that I could potentially see on a regular basis. Tour life has conditioned my social skills in such a way that I've become excellent at talking to those whom I know I will never see again. Why? Because I don't have to remember what they say. Call me shallow? Okay. But I challenge you to stay in a different stranger's house almost every night for sixteen months and remember everything you hear. Ooooooo.

Now, quickly, if you're looking back on my last post and wondering what has happened to me in the past few months since my children went home... know that I miss them and the team more than I'd miss my toes if you cut them all off. There's a reason I didn't "blah-g" about it... okay? Okay.

But now that I'm home for good (mini-jaunt to Asia for a month post-tour was lovely but totally postponed my "re-entry" period), I feel like a fish out of water, or better yet, that bird from Rudolf that swims: I'm most comfortable/I belong on the island of misfit toys and yet Santa has taken me away to live in the real world! I'm completely lost in my own town.

So if you've talked to me in the past week or so, the conversation may have gone something like this:

You: "Amy! Hi! Are you back now?"

Me: "Hi. Yep, I'm home, this isn't a hologram."

You: (awkward laugh) "Well it's good to have you back."

Me: "Yep, good to be home.... "

You: (feeling a bit awkward due to the lack of normal conversation, you're probably wondering why I'm not asking you how you've been etc., but truth be told I'm probably so antsy in my fear of what you'll ask/say that it hasn't come to mind to ask you anything, let alone how you are) "Ooooh-kaaay... Well have a great day!"

Me: "yep, you too, k bye!"

----OR----

You: "Amy! Hi! Are you back now?"

Me: "Hi! I am back! So how long have you been around here?"

You: "Um... well I've been here since 1823..."

Me: "Oh good, good, so is your family around here too?"

You: "Um... my kids..."

Me: "That must be nice to have them close. How old are they?"

You: "Amy? Amy? Are you okay, Amy? You've known me since you were 5, Amy? Earth to Amy?"

Me: (run.)

Observations?

From the first:

1. I probably forgot your name. OR, I never knew you and you just saw my name/face somewhere and are kind and brave enough to come talk to me and welcome me home. Either way, I salute you. I apologize for my memory failures/lack of social courage.

2. If I forgot your name, or if I never knew you, I probably feel like at some point I knew your name and you, but, I've forgotten, therefore I'm afraid to ask questions that I may or may not be expected to know the answer to, and am therefore afraid that I'll offend you by exposing the fact that I actually know nothing about you.

3. I get really excited when I'm uncomfortable in a conversation and it ends. Don't be offended, please, Oscar the Grouch was less grouchy when he said goodbye, and it was nothing personal, it was just him.

From the second:

1. I've reverted into tour-mode.

2. You may wonder if I'm really listening to you. Rest assured, I'm listening. The conversation may have gone on for a while with me asking great questions. I am definitely listening. I may even say a prayer for you before I go to bed, I may remember some profound truth from the conversation and write it down. No doubt about it, I'm listening.

3. Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, I may not know you from Adam (or Eve).

So note: I believe I'm experiencing culture shock in an incredibly odd way. Please don't hold it against me that I might be awkward or rude or even stand-off-ish. I'm working up the courage to come and say hello to you, but I'm like the Cowardly Lion and I haven't quite reached the Wizard for my courage. I'll get there, the yellow brick road can't go on forever.

(Side note: If you know who I am but you know I don't know who you are, please, I beg you, pretend like you don't know who I am, or you'll just slow this whole re-entry process down and I'll probably pretend my phone is ringing or I'll suddenly really have to go somewhere or something will happen to get out of the conversation. Just so you know.)

ouch, my heart.

I successfully woke up at 4:58 this morning. I went to the boys room to greet, and went up the stairs wondering, "How? How does this go? How many times can I hug them before they actually have to get in the car?" Haha. Several hugs from ALL the boys and about 6 hugs from Jonah and Reagan later, the two piled into the car and I got in the driver's seat and said, "Who's ready to go to New York!" Jonah shouted out, "ME!" I wish. I stepped out and waved goodbye with tears in my eyes, as the rest of the chaps and I watched Uncle Craig pull away to the airport with two huge pieces of our hearts. Stacy and I then got in the van to start a mad shopping trip to fill all the holes in the children's suitcases. The combination of over exhaustion and being emotionally drained led to some very hilarious situations, for example... I laughed so hard I cried when Stacy didn't think Target was open because the lights on the sign weren't on. The sign doesn't have lights, and upon this realization, we spent 4 or 5 minutes sitting in the car laughing so hard I had to use two napkins from my bagel to wipe away my tears and blow my nose. We then walked in and noticed the phone books sitting next to the automatic doors, so we delivered them along to Customer Service. We also chatted it up with a man from the UK in front of the un-open Payless across from Panera. I asked him if he wanted to make the store clerk feel pressured to open up early with us as we stared in the windows, he just said that the store here wasn't as good as the parent store in the UK. Maybe that meant no?

All in all we had a successful shopping morning and the children are fully equipped to go home. Their bags are almost all packed, their things are getting in order, God is preparing all our hearts for the days to come. We can do it. We have been blessed with these children: to teach them and train them and love them so that they can go back to Africa and do the same to others.

Stacy also told me that the reason the pages in the book from last night were missing:

Some of the boys wanted to write Jonah and Reagan notes before they left. And they didn't have paper, but they had a Madagascar book.

I love our kids.

Coming Soon to Choir 35...

New York City.



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a holiday, of sorts

(I began writing this when I was home nearly three weeks ago, and just remembered it today...)

Unrest. Peace. Love. Hate. Joy. Sorrow. Goodbye. Hello. Fear. Calm. Worry. Trust. Excitement, anticipation: Relief.

All these things I have felt in the past month and a half - on extreme levels. Learning to trust God with more than what I ever thought I could even experience.

I sit here in my living room at home with my family, getting ready to join my African Children's Choir family tomorrow. For about ten days I have been on the East Coast, visiting my very best friend after she has left her side of the world - about as randomly as I left mine. Together we have laughed, nearly cried, gone canoeing, planned our lives and envisioned what life would have been like if things had actually gone the way we planned them to go. Thank the Lord that He is good and He knows what is truly best for us.

God never gives us more than we can handle - but he knows that we can handle a lot more than we think we can. In His strength we will soar on wings like eagles, we will run and not grow weary, we will walk and not grow faint. How true that is - when the world crumbles around us our strength found in Him never even falters. Matthew 5 and Psalm 91 continually remind me of that truth from Isaiah. Blessed are the persecuted, blessed are those who mourn, they will find shelter in the Lord's tent - all will be well.

I have experienced many things in the past couple years. The joys and sorrows of parenting children that had long, rough histories before I even knew about them is indeed rewarding as well as difficult. My heart burns for Mari Tarez, the dear girl I came to love so much in Haiti. My mind swirls each day with the children I am with now as well as with her. Jumbled in are thoughts and prayers for my best friend, my family, and what on earth I'll do when I get off tour. Fortunately as I soar on wings like eagles, God knows the plans he has for me - so He'll continue to push me with His powerful wind in the direction I need to go. Storms will come and go, the winds get rough and there are times when the skies are clear and the soaring is smooth.

Trials are what make us strong. Going through the fire. Rejoicing in the painful purification process because looking back we can see how far God has brought us. Those shiny spots of silver that were once tarnished reveal just a tiny bit more of the Silversmith's reflection in us.

So with a multitude of emotions, of things these past couple months have presented themselves with, I am thankful. All the time, God is good, and God is good all the time!

a world of strangers

I'm craving a life I'm not currently called to live.

Each night I climb in a car to go home with any number of complete strangers. We are introduced, but conveniently enough because of the children, 'Auntie' and 'Uncle' are the names they usually go by (which saves the embarrassment I have had in the past by calling tonight's host by the name of last night's host). It's a life full of strangers, every minute characterized by a very obnoxious, talkative worm that seems to live in my head - always saying things like "Why does it matter, when tomorrow you'll be gone?" There's a new kind of wall being built up around my heart - for better or for worse - because when I become "friends" with people I meet - in a matter of days or even hours, they go back to their normal life and I climb on a bus - and we'll probably never see or hear from each other again until we are together in Glory. Perhaps even, I think we've gotten along really well and as I'm contemplating giving my email address to them to keep in touch - they casually wave goodbye and once again I am a passing phase. It's not easy (being green - especially now, and yes, I use plastic water bottles, but thirty people on one bus - how many emissions are we saving the planet by carpooling across North America?) Anyway, it's not easy living this life. Almost every night a new house, a new family, a new set of names, a new bed, a new bathroom, and a new set of stairs.

Stairs. How bizarre that I notice the stairs. I'm one of those people that counts steps. Does that make me OCD? Perhaps. At home there are thirteen steps, a set of eight, a landing, then five more. And as I walked up the stairs at my host family today, arriving after a lovely day off - I carried my bag up to my room for three nights - and I didn't count eight and five. And as I counted I thought to myself, "This is something I always did at home. Got home from work, brought my bag up to my room, counted the stairs on my way, then went down to sit with my family." People I knew. People that when I sat around the table with, I could call by name. "Hey Miss, can you hand me the chicken?" instead of my now formal and impersonal "Excuse me Uncle, would you mind passing me the chicken?" My cordialness leaks a sense of oddity as my bag sits on a stranger's bed that's wearing sheets and a duvet cover littered in large, brightly covered flowers. I miss my solid colored walls and my snow white comforter at home - the lack of patterns and visual business that cloud my head and eyes with rainbow vomit. Who thought floral print was a good idea?

I think about all this today, because I had an absolutely lovely day off with very wonderful people I know from home. Though it's been a long time since I've seen them, it was a breath of fresh air and a taste of home. I climbed into the car with them this morning and immediately felt as though I'd stepped back into my other "life" - driving through the streets of "Canandaigua" with two friends that I have looked up to greatly for as long as I can remember. It was familiar.

"Familiar" I've come to learn is a very powerful, very important word. And how nice that it's so close to "Family" - Familiar. Family is familiar. The twenty-nine other people I live with and the bus we all live on right now is the only close "familiar" that I have - and they have become to me a very special family. Here. But every now and again I wish that when I got "home" at night I'd count the same eight and five and sit down with people I've known for more than nine months. Living through each day knowing exactly where I was and where I was going to rest my head that night. Someplace familiar.

And yet each night as I lay my head down in whichever house I happen to be in, I know that God has called me here for such a time as this. Though sometimes I think I'd give just about anything to go home to the familiar, I'm not willing to give up this family. I, along with eight others, are interim parents for these beautiful children and each day is an opportunity to teach and train them in the way they should go. The craving I have for a life of non-nomadic "normalcy" is significantly dwarfed by the craving I have to be with these people, these children: this family.

And so I pray, "Right now, Lord, here I am, for such a time as this."

Michael W. Smith!

Last night the choir got to sing with Michael W. Smith! They did fantastic a fantastic job, and we all had so much fun!

big lessons from a little man

His name? Nehemiah.

God has a way of putting things on our hearts at what we feel are the most random times. Like a few days ago when He said, "Hey Amy, why don't you open to Nehemiah tonight?" and I said, "mmhmm, ok, but I don't see what building a wall has to do with the African Children's Choir..."

Oh my, I mean this short little man and I are like twins, metaphorically speaking.

Reading through the chapters, Nehemiah finds out about the destruction of the city wall, he feels a call to rebuild it, he asks the king to go, the king says yes, he goes, he plans, he builds, he faces opposition, he keeps building. He keeps building. He keeps building until the work is done.

Do you see it yet? Do you see how we're twins? No? yeah. Took me a while.

It clicked in my head when I got to 6:3, where Nehemiah says these words: "I am doing a good work, and I cannot come down."

A few years ago my pastor did a sermon series on Nehemiah, and that verse is what I remember from it. Occasionally it runs through my head when I maybe don't want to do something other than what I'm doing, and I say the verse in pride. As if to say, "ha, as if, I'm busy doing good up here, so too bad, I cannot come down." But sometimes I say it in humility as a personal reminder. "I am doing a good work, and no matter how tired I am, no matter how much I may want to go back home, no matter what anyone else says, I cannot come down."

Building a wall around Jerusalem surely wasn't an easy task. Fifty-two days, chapter six tells us it took. Fifty two days - God had a pretty big part in this - because fifty-two days for a wall around a city is making quick work. (If only road construction in the 21st century could go as quickly.) But the stones were still heavy, the work was hard, with it came blisters, sweat and pain as they worked to restore the wall. But the joy they had in amidst the difficulties, the sense of accomplishment they must have had when they stepped back and saw just a little bit more of the wall completed. Isn't it worth it?

And I look at my life right now; I look at the beautiful faces I see each day, the joy and the hope that is in the eyes of each and every one of those kids, and I see my wall. I am Nehemiah, and the ACC is my wall. Some days the work is easy, some days it is hard. Sometimes I feel that the section I built yesterday came crumbling down today. Some days the work is quick and the party at the end of the day is a grand celebration of the accomplishments. Some days are just average - but I must rejoice in them all. For God has called me to this work - and when I continue to rely on Him, the wall will get bigger. It is good.

I won't be home for Christmas (this year you can't count on me, despite how much I would love to go home for Christmas) and I won't be home for Easter, Thanksgiving, my sister's birthday, New Years, or anything else for a while, but I am where God has called me to be. My wall right now is here, on a bus. I am doing a good work, and I cannot come down.

So you see? Me and Nehemiah, we are twins.

in the course of a year

One year ago today I woke up at the dreadful hour of 3:30 am, boarded a plane and moved to Haiti. Has it really been a year since that day? I remember the moment I stepped off the plane onto the tarmac with no idea where I was going – knowing only that when I got out of the airport I was to look for the tall white man. Crazy? Absolutely. Then together the tall white man (Dan) and I would travel to the guest house where the rest of the whites were, and wake up the next morning only to hop into a blue taxi van and travel to an island where I would make my home for the following six months of my life.

It was on that island where I learned to be content with where I was, what I was doing, where I wasn’t, and what I wasn’t doing.

On that island I couldn't go anywhere alone. I made wonderful friends – some whom I could easily communicate with; others, mmm, not so much.

On that island I learned a new language – seventy-five percent Haitian Creole, twenty-five percent “make noises and hand motions until they know what I’m trying to tell them.”

There I went without the Internet, a phone, television and radio, and sometimes electricity and running water.

Sometimes I think my life was completely crazy.

From that island I boarded an eight-passenger boat with twenty-five other people, four suitcases, a keyboard, a giant bag of charcoal and a pile of tied-up chickens; then watched as the shore got farther and farther away and the man behind me quickly bailed water from the boat with a five gallon bucket.

Perhaps “crazy” isn’t an adequate enough word.

This year on that island I fell in love with an orphan girl named Mari Tarez. She stole my heart away with her broken spirit and her deep, lonely eyes. Through her I was humbled. With her I learned a sliver of what it means to have God as my Papa. Because of her I feel as though those six months of loneliness, frustration, restlessness and growing were completely justified and worthwhile. I’d do it again for her in a heartbeat.

On that island I learned that wonderful security and comfort comes in the simplicity of a mosquito net.

This year I walked the fence between principles and love. What kind of thorny fence is that??

This year Acts 3:6 has made me dance with joy and weep with brokenness. “Silver or gold I have not – but what I have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk.”

This year I spoke the following sentence: “Mom! When I get a bowl of cereal, I don’t have to look for worms in it before I pour the milk!” Funny, the things we get used to doing.

This year I went on a fantastic road trip with my best friend all over New England. Together we spent a day driving & $30 in gas to find a Ben & Jerry’s so we could get a free ice cream cone for lunch, only to wind up at a sketchy gas station in Maine. On this trip we went to Yale. We camped in Cape Cod. We slept in the parking lot of a gas station just inside New Hampshire because we hated Vermont that much. We saw a show on Broadway. We got lost in Boston. We had the time of our lives.

This year I graduated from college. Before April, I couldn’t even remember what it’s like to not be in college.

This year my roommate got married. My sister started college. My best friend moved to Asia.

And I started living my dream.

This year I took up residence on a bus with twenty-three beautiful African children and seven other adults.

This year all the things that God has given me passions for have come rolling together to form the first stepping-stone in my life as a “grown-up” – and it is happening here, with the African Children’s Choir. Music, children, traveling, global ministry, choirs, it’s all here in this one thing. Could it get any better than this??

Looking back at where I’ve been in the course of just twelve months, I can’t believe the kinds of things I’ve done & learned. I feel as though I’ve become an expert at sociology & ethnographies (it’s amazing the kinds of things you can tell about a person by their car). I’ve slept in so many different places & houses I often wake up and have no idea what town I’m in – let alone where the bedroom door is located (an extremely odd, semi-uncomfortable feeling…).

This year I am thankful for opportunities, for the people that God has brought into my life, for the things I have learned, and for the places I have been.

It has certainly been quite the year.